Eileen Wilks - Michael's Temptation

He answered. She couldn’t make out the words, but he answered.

That quickly, the energy that had carried her was gone. Her legs and arms went from aching to trembling. Weakness sped through her like a drug, and she wanted, badly, to let the water carry her to him, let him do the rest.

Stupid, stupid. Did she want to drown them both? She struck out for the nearest shore, her limbs sluggish and weak.

At last her foot struck mud when she kicked. Silty, slimy, wonderful mud. She tried to stand, and couldn’t. So she crawled on hands and knees, feeling each inch won free of the water as a victory worthy of bands and trumpets and parades.

The bank was narrow, a stretch of mud, twigs and rotting vegetation. She dragged herself onto it. And collapsed.

For long minutes she lay there and breathed, her muscles twitching and jumping. Never had she enjoyed breathing more. Birds had woken with the dawn, and their songs, cries and scoldings made a varied chorus, punctuated by the chatter and screech of monkeys.

He had made it to shore, hadn’t he?

She had to look for him. Groaning, she pushed herself onto her side, raising herself on an arm that felt like cooked spaghetti, preparing for the work of standing up.

And saw him, for the first time, in the full light of day.

He sat four feet away with one knee up, his arm propped across it. Water dripped from short black hair and from the wet fatigues that clung to muscular arms and thighs. He wore an odd-looking vest with lots of pockets over his brown-and-green shirt. His face was oval, the skin tanned and taut and shadowed by beard stubble; the nose was pure Anglo, but the cheekbones and dark, liquid eyes looked Latin. His mouth was solemn, unsmiling. The upper lip was a match for the lower. It bowed in a perfect dip beneath that aristocratic nose.

Her heart gave an uncomfortable lurch. The stranger watching her was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. And he was looking her over. His gaze moved from her feet to her legs, from belly to breasts, finally reaching her face.

“Basketball?” he asked.

A.J. blinked. Maybe the vision of male beauty had taken a blow to the head? “I, ah, didn’t bring a ball.”

He grinned. “I must have swallowed more river water than I thought. No, I haven’t taken leave of my senses. I was thinking of your legs. I thought I’d lost you…” His grin faded as his mouth tightened. “The current was rough. I couldn’t get to you, and I didn’t think you’d be able to make it on your own, not after the run we’d just put in. But obviously you use those legs of yours for more than kneeling.”

“Oh.” She processed the sentence backward to his original question, and answered it. “Track in college, baseball for fun, running for exercise, swimming sometimes.”

“When you said you were fit, you meant it. Which relieves my mind considerably. We have a long walk ahead of us, Rev.”

Annoyance flicked a little more life back into her. She pulled her weary body upright. “I’ve asked you not to call me that.”

“Yeah, I know. The thing is, if I stop calling you Reverend, I’m apt to start paying attention to the wrong things, like those world-class legs of yours. They look great wet, by the way.”

It occurred to her that her legs weren’t the only part of her that was soaked. She glanced down—and quickly pulled her shirt out so it didn’t plaster itself against her breasts. Heat rose in her cheeks. “Then you can call me Reverend Kelleher, and I’ll call you Lieutenant West.”

He shook his head. “I’ll do better to think of you as one of my men for the next few days. We don’t lean toward much formality on the team, so you need to be either Rev or Legs. I’m better off with Rev, I think.” He reached for a canvas kit that hung from his belt. “Especially since the next thing we have to do is take off our clothes.”

She stiffened. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re cute when your mouth gets all prim.”

“Refusing to strip for a man I don’t know isn’t prim. It’s common sense. And a man who would ask me to—”

“Whoa.” He held both hands up. “I might tease, but you’re completely, one hundred percent safe with me. No offense, but you’re the last type of woman I’d make a play for.”

“Good.” She might be superficial enough to react to his looks, but that was all it was—a silly, superficial reaction. It would fade. He was a man of war. Nothing like Dan.

He nodded and unhooked the kit. “Okay, now that we’ve got that straight…you’ll find that I don’t give a lot of orders. And never without a reason. When I do give one, though, you’d do well to follow it. And that was an order, Rev. Take off your shirt and pants.”

“I’m not jumping without an explanation this time.”

“Visual scan,” he said briskly. “We need to check each other out for scrapes, scratches, anyplace the skin is broken. After being tumbled around in the river, we might not notice a small scratch, and between infection and parasites, even the smallest cut is dangerous.”

She thought of Sister Maria Elena’s foot. He made sense…unfortunately. “You first.

“I can wait.”

She inhaled slowly and prayed for patience. It was not a virtue that came naturally to her. “What will happen to me if your misguided sense of chivalry kills you off before we get out of here?”

He didn’t respond at first. His eyes were dark, steady and unreadable. Finally he pulled a small first aid kit out of his kit and handed it to her. “Use the ointment—it’s antibacterial. You’d better take care of my leg first.”

“Your leg?”

He nodded and unfastened his belt.

She tried not to gawk as he levered his hips up so he could pull his pants down. She was a grown woman. A widow. She’d seen male legs before. And her reason for looking at this particular pair of legs was strictly medical, so— “Oh, dear Lord.”

“A bullet clipped me when I made my swan dive off the cliff.” He bent to look at the long, nasty gouge dug into the flesh of his upper thigh. It was still oozing blood. “Doesn’t look too bad. The way it’s been burning, I was a little worried.”

It looked bad enough to A.J. She dug out the tube of antibiotic cream. “I don’t see peroxide or rubbing alcohol to clean the wound.”

“Chances are it bled itself clean.”

They would have to hope so, it seemed. She uncapped the ointment and squeezed out a generous portion.

“Hey—be stingy with that. We don’t have any more.”

“Shut up. Just shut up.” Grimly she bent over his leg. “I have no patience with blind, stubborn machismo. I can’t believe you were going to let this wait while you looked for scratches I don’t have.”

“A man has to take his pleasures where…” His breath caught when she stroked ointment into the shallow end of the wound. “Where he finds them. I expect I’ll enjoy looking for your scratches more than what you’re doing now. I don’t suppose you were part of a medical mission?”

“Teaching.” She bit her lip. She’d had little experience with nursing, and not much aptitude for it. Too much empathy. Her hands were already a little shaky. “You might want to start praying. Or cursing. Whatever works.”

His muscles quivered when she pulled the torn flesh apart so she could get the dressing into the deepest part of the wound. His breath hissed out. But if he did any cursing or praying, he kept it to himself. “Nice hands. I don’t see a wedding ring.”

“I’m a widow.”

“Pity.”

What did he mean by that? “Okay. That’s the best I can do.” She sat back on her heels. “It needs to be bandaged, but the gauze is damp.”

“Damned kit’s supposed to be waterproof.” He grimaced. “So was my radio, but I lost it and my CAR 16 in the river. Use the gauze. It won’t be sterile, but it’s better than letting flies lay eggs in my leg.”